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News :: Environment : Globalization |
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Environmentalists Urge World Leaders to Take Action at Global Warming Meeting in Buenos Aires |
by Mark HM IMC
Email: hmIMC (nospam) indymedia.org |
11 Dec 2004
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 Countries are meeting in Argentina to discuss the future of the world's only international effort against climate change, the Kyoto Protocol. Because Russia has ratified it will become binding international law on 16 February 2005. Greenpeace, Oxfam, World Wildlife Fund and other groups called for "urgent action from governments" to halt temperatures increases they said hit hardest at the poor and developing countries. Industrial nations have an obligation to take the lead in arresting the trend. Yet the developed world is subsidising its own heavily polluting fossil fuel industry by $73 billion a year,according to latest available estimates. Many scientists believe the heat-trapping gases seriously threaten life on Earth by causing a gradual rise in the planet's temperature. Global warming has been blamed for more violent storms, rising sea levels and shrinking animal habitats. |
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News :: Environment : Peace |
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Maathai, Green Party Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Sounds Alarm over Mother Earth |
by Mark HM IMC
Email: hmIMC (nospam) indymedia.org |
11 Dec 2004
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The founder of the Kenyan Green Party, Wangari Maathai, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, stated "Many of the wars in Africa are fought over natural resources. Ensuring they are not destroyed is a way of ensuring there is no conflict." The first black African woman to win a Nobel Prize in any category since the awards were first handed out in 1901, Maathai gained acclaim for the Greenbelt campaign to plant 30 million trees to stave off deforestation. Saying the planet is at risk from human activity, Maathai urged democratic reforms and an end to corporate greed. "The Norwegian Nobel Committee has challenged the world to broaden the understanding of peace: there can be no peace without equitable development; and there can be no development without sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space. This shift is an idea whose time has come." |
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Announcement :: Peace |
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Kathy Kelly, Voices of Wildnerness, Albany Dec. 11-13 |
by Mark HM IMC
Email: hmIMC (nospam) indymedia.org |
04 Dec 2004
Modified: 10 Dec 2004 |
 "US Way of Life leads to Injustice". Kathy Kelly, a three time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, helped initiate Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end the UN/US sanctions against Iraq. She has visited Iraq 20 times since 1996. She will speak at 7 p.m. Sat. Dec. 11 at Bethlehem Town Hall with Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace; at 2 p.m. Sun. Dec. 12 at Academy of the Holy Names, 1073 New Scotland Ave., Albany; and at 4 p.m. Monday Dec. 13 at the Siena College Student Union. In "U.S. way of life leads to injustice," an op ed carried in the ALbany Times Union recently, Kelly states: "Enormous talent, creativity and money are poured into military spending, ostensibly to defend us. And yet the luxurious way of life available to the majority of people in the United States is considered morally indefensible by people in lands held hostage by U.S. policies designed to control their resources." |
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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Environment |
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Greens Protest EPA Decision to Allow Human Testing of Pesticides |
by Mark HM IMC
Email: hmIMC (nospam) indymedia.org |
10 Dec 2004
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 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it will accept experiments using human subjects submitted by pesticide companies and chemical manufacturers. According to a document released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), under the new system, EPA imposes no rules to prevent unethical practices but will instead make decisions “concerning ethically problematic studies on a case-by-case basis.” "The lack of oversight on the testing of pesticides on human subjects will open the door to all kinds of abuses," said Gray Newman, Soil & Water District Commissioner in Mecklenburg, North Carolina and co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. "Investigation of abuses will be arbitrary and subject to the political loyalties of EPA appointees and the influence of pesticide lobbies." |
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News :: Drugs |
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Legislature Eases Rockefeller Drug Laws |
by Mark HM IMC
Email: hmIMC (nospam) indymedia.org |
07 Dec 2004
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 The deal in the NYS legislature on reforming the Rockefeller Drug Law falls short of what the Greens, Drop the Rock and other drug reformers want. No end of course to the war on drugs. No amnesty for nonviolent offenders, though they could apply for release based on the new guidelines. Judges are not given discretion on sentencing but the sentences are substantially reduced and the amounts of drugs increased. A number of drug reform groups vowed to continue the fight for true reform next year. A lot of credit to (grandpa) Al Lewis, Randy Credico, the Kunstler Fund and the Mothers of the Disappeared, for fighting on this issue for so many years, bringing visibility with their weekly pickets. True voices in the wilderness. The recent victory by David Soares in the Albany County DA race on the Rockefeller Drug issue pushed the legislature to come to an agreement - the issue is whether this will now undercut the chance for real reform. |
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News :: Animal Rights |
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PETA CALLS ON PRICE CHOPPER TO BOYCOTT IOWA SLAUGHTERHOUSE UNTIL ATROCITIES STOP |
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by PETA |
07 Dec 2004
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Undercover Investigation of Meat Plant Reveals Mutilation of Fully Conscious Animals. Following its seven-week undercover investigation of AgriProcessors, Inc., which operates a slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, PETA has fired off a letter to Price Chopper Chair Lewis Golub, urging him to stop purchasing meat from AgriProcessors until it agrees to PETA’s demands, which include submitting to regular audits for the humane treatment of animals. PETA has furnished Golub with shocking video footage of the mutilation of fully conscious cows, who writhe in agony in pools of their own blood at AgriProcessors, the largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse in the world. PETA is asking Price Chopper to extend the audits to all of the slaughterhouses that it deals with. Price Chopper has not responded to PETA’s attempts to contact the company about the investigation. |
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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Crime & Police : Media : Peace : Prisons |
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"What Is Free Speech?" - Pam Africa To Speak in Albany Mon December 6 at 7 PM |
by penny lane
Email: penny (nospam) yellowandorange.com |
02 Dec 2004
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 Pam Africa, leader of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, will speak at the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church on Monday December 6 at 7 Pm. Proceeds will benefit the Social Justice Center and the Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center. For over twenty years Pam Africa has been Mumia Abu-Jamal's primary spokesperson, his tireless representative from death row and the most familiar face in the worldwide movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. A great-grandmother and community activist, Pam Africa is a real life revolutionary for these troubled times. |
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News :: Elections & Legislation |
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Will the Democrats Join the Greens in Fighting for Ohio Vote Recount? |
by Harvey Wasserman & Bob Fitrakis; David Cobb
Email: hmIMC (nospam) indymedia.org |
02 Dec 2004
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 As the Reverend Jesse Jackson rocked a cheering crowd here in Columbus Sunday, a national movement was born. Shouts of "you got that right!" rang through the hall as Jackson preached that what Karl Rove and George Bush and Kenneth Blackwell are doing to the 2004 vote in Ohio would not fly in Iraq or Ukraine or Afghanistan. Central Ohio, America's leading test market, the quintessential home of college football and Wendy's hamburgers, has become Ground Zero in the struggle of the century over a vote count that has not yet been certified. More and more commentators are drawing parallels between Ohio and Ukraine where "losing" candidates received 53% and 54% respectively, in exit polls. Meanwhile, the Green Party's PResidential candidate David Cobb, the lead litigator in Ohio, moved into federal court, getting the court to overturn a state court injunction which had revented a recount in Franklin County. |
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